


Forgotten Curses

by CookieDoughMe



Series: Decades and Generations (for Haven Month 2020) [3]
Category: Haven (TV)
Genre: 10 years of Haven, 15 years after the Troubles end forever, After the Troubles, Angst, Ben and Ashley Harker mentioned, Fluffy Ending, Gen, Gloria Verrano mentioned, Non-canon-compliant, The Harker Curse, Trouble of the Week, Wakes & Funerals, duke's pov, havenmonth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-18
Updated: 2020-07-18
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:20:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25357618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CookieDoughMe/pseuds/CookieDoughMe
Summary: This is for theHaven Month prompt,Trouble of the Week.This follows on frommy other Haven Month fics, so it’s more than a decade since the Troubles ended and there is no active Trouble here, but there are some musings on the consequences of a canon one.This is more angsty than the others in this series but it still has the same kind of tone I think.
Relationships: Aaron Harker & Jean Mitchell
Series: Decades and Generations (for Haven Month 2020) [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1825660
Comments: 4
Kudos: 4
Collections: Haven Month 2020





	Forgotten Curses

The weather was such a perfect reflection of everyone’s mood that Duke almost wondered whether Marion Caldwell’s Trouble was back in action for a day. The sky was grey, dark and so heavy it felt like there was dramatically less space above them than usual when they stepped outside. It didn’t even offer the interest of clouds moving past each other. The whole dome of the sky above them was just one relentless grey; no texture, no movement, no sun, no nothing. It looked like it was going to rain but it didn’t, it felt cold enough to snow but the ground was just grey with mud and slushy ice. It was every kind of negative weather you could possibly imagine and none of the good. The perfect fit for a funeral.

Gloria's had been the difficult kind of death where everyone had to admit that it was time for her to go. She had been ill for a long time, and there was nothing else to be done. She had time to say her goodbyes and set her affairs in order, and she died without pain. In many ways it was the best kind of death that anyone could hope for. But it was still a death. There were still a lot of emotions for those left behind to sort through and it was still a shock, a dramatic shock to realise that they now existed in a world without Gloria Verrano in it.

Aaron struggled most of all. She was the only family he'd ever known. For all that Vickie, Duke and Audrey and Nathan, and Dwight and all the others had tried to become some kind of family to him, that could never be quite the same thing. (In some ways perhaps it could even be better sometimes - but never quite the same.) Aaron was 16 now and growing up fast, and Duke knew that not only Gloria, but also Ben and Ashley Harker would be proud of him. Duke wouldn’t claim to feel proud himself exactly (he didn’t feel he quite deserved that), but the sting of what he’d had to do 15 years ago to save a baby's life was lessened just a little every time he saw the strong and caring man that Aaron was growing into. Because, he wasn’t simply growing up, he was growing up free of the Harker Curse. Today more than ever, Duke was very aware of what that meant.

When Aaron had still been tiny, they had all agreed never to tell him the full details of how and why his parents had died. It was one of several aspects of the Troubles that they never talked about at all, and that was one of the many blessings of knowing that they weren’t coming back. If the cycle had been due to repeat again, they couldn’t have allowed themselves that luxury, but as it was there was no need for him to know. No one deserved to live with the knowledge their cries had killed their mother and been responsible for their father asking to die. No matter how much they would have told him it hadn’t been his fault - no matter how much that was true - that was still something he didn’t need to live with. They had told him part of it; they told him the things he needed to know, like the fact that both his parents had loved him very much, that they hadn’t wanted to leave him and had wanted only the best for him. They told him (and Jean) some of what had happened; that Haven had once been a dangerous place and that his parents (and Jean’s mother) had been caught up in the disasters that had affected so many people in the town. But mostly they were glad that he didn’t need to know, that no future generation of Haven citizens would ever have to make the kinds of choices Duke and Ben had made that day, and that no future parents would have to teach their children to never cry.

And so now, Duke looked across the grave at Aaron, visibly upset at his first funeral, and even through Duke’s own sadness at the occasion and his empathy for Aaron’s tears, there was a thread of elation and gratitude running through him. Elation that Aaron was free to cry at a funeral without any awareness of why that might once have been a problem. Gratitude that Aaron was allowed the space to grow into all of his emotions, and wouldn’t have to shut parts of himself off as generations of Harker men before him had been required to do. 

Aaron stood with his sadness; he didn't try to hide from it. Tears ran softly down his face that he didn't care to wipe away as he looked down at the coffin in the cold earth. He dropped something into it, a keepsake of some kind, and stepped back. Jean stood next to Aaron, almost as sad as he was. Gloria was one of the first people she'd met when she'd come to Haven, and Aaron had been her first real friend here. Aaron reached out and took her hand and she squeezed his fingers without taking her eye off the coffin. 

Duke realised suddenly their friendship might be shifting into a more romantic kind of relationship and he felt an unexpected bloom of warmth in his chest at the thought. They had a lot in common afterall, and they complemented each other too he realised. Jean had some of his own impulsiveness, his chattiness. Aaron was more quiet and considered; some of Ben’s contained quality to him even without the restrictions of the Harker Curse. They could be good for each other.

They were 16 now and not children any longer. It wouldn’t be so surprising if they were dating already. In a sense, he hoped they were. Gloria would approve, he thought, and so did he.


End file.
